


I'd Rather Be Here

by ArcanePursuits



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Based on a song, Eda and lilith are mentioned, F/F, Gus and Willow too actually, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mild Hurt/Comfort, aka I got this idea at like 3 am one day and was like why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28459200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcanePursuits/pseuds/ArcanePursuits
Summary: Six years after she left the Boiling Isles, Luz shows up on Amity’s doorstep.One-shot inspired by I'd Give it All For You from Songs for a New World.
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 4
Kudos: 117





	I'd Rather Be Here

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! As said in the summary, this fic was inspired by the song I'd Give it All for You from Jason Robert Brown's musical Songs for a New World. If you're interested in knowing more about the feeling/ideas I was trying to capture here, give it a listen to! It's a great show.

Amity wasn’t entirely sure who she had expected to be there when she answered the door, but she definitely didn't anticipate it being… her. 

Sure, she looked very different from the last time she had been in the Boiling Isles. Her hair was now down to her shoulders, she’d grown considerably taller — taller than Amity herself was, now, she noted with a hint of irritation — and her facial features had become sharpened, more defined with age. But there was no mistaking the familiar sparkle in the warm brown eyes which locked onto hers, nor the voice that, even though it had deepened after all these years, was so undeniably hers. 

“Hey, Amity.”

All Amity could do was stare. This wasn’t real, she wasn’t back, she said she wasn’t going to come back. And yet when Amity blinked, she was still standing there, fiddling nervously with her hands as she awaited the witch’s response.

Amity stared at the other girl in silence for a few more seconds, trying unsuccessfully to find something, anything to say. It was as if her brain had completely frozen, unable to comprehend the person who stood before her. 

Eventually, only one word found its way out of Amity’s mouth. 

“...Luz?” It came out as a whisper.

Luz Noceda. The girl who had broken her heart six years ago.

Luz nodded, the worried frown on her face curving into that oh-so-familiar smile, albeit with a hesitance Amity couldn’t remember ever seeing in all the years she had known her.

“Yeah. It’s me,” 

Immediately, Amity’s brain went into overdrive as conflicting feelings began to war against each other. Anger that Luz dared to show up like this, with no warning, after leaving like she did, happiness at seeing her again when she never thought she’d get the chance, confusion as to why, why, why. And, most overpowering, a rush of fondness that Amity hadn't felt in years, one she tried to push down, as there was no way that she could possibly still feel that way after all these years. 

She ignored the voice in her head which claimed otherwise.

She wanted to run forward and grab Luz, holding her close and never letting her go again. She wanted to slam the door in her face, or scream at her, or demand to know what business she thought she had coming back into her life after completely abandoning her for six years. She wanted to demand answers to the flurry of questions that were now building up in her head.

Instead, she simply said “You’re back”. She managed to keep her tone flat despite the storm of emotions welling up inside her — a skill she had perfected after years of being a Blight.

The smile on Luz’s face dropped. “Okay, I… I know I have a lot of explaining to do. And I'll explain everything. Please, please just give me a chance.”

Amity bit her lip, once again trying to shove down the swarm of feelings pounding against her chest. She nodded tersely, holding the door of her apartment open to let Luz inside. 

She watched as Luz curiously looked around her slightly cramped but cozy apartment. Luz glanced over the number of framed pictures hanging on the narrow hallway which made up the apartment’s entrance, narrowing her eyes in focus at one of them before widening them in surprise. 

“Is that… my drawing?”

Amity looked at the picture in question to see that yes, it was a sketch of the Good Witch Azura that Luz had given her back in the days when they had their Azura book club. She mentally beat herself up for choosing to hang up that drawing — where could she even begin to explain why she chose to hang that up, of all things, without saying it was because it was one of the few things she had to remind her of Luz?

Nonetheless, she looked over at it with a practiced casualness. “Oh, huh. I suppose it is. Anyway, follow me.”

Amity led her down the hallway to her kitchen, a room with a table on one side and a counter, stove, and fridge on the other. Luz assumed. Amity walked over to the table and sat down, gesturing for Luz to take the other chair. 

There was a long moment of silence after Luz sat down. Neither of them knew who the first one to talk should be. Finally, Amity broke the silence with one of the flurry of questions stampeding around in her head. 

“How did you find me?”

Luz smiled a little at the question. “Willow told me, actually. I said I wanted to talk to you — that I needed to talk to you — and after some convincing she told me I’d find you here. I was kind of surprised, honestly, I thought you’d be… I don’t know, with the Emperor’s Coven or something.”

Amity let out a surprised, humorless laugh. “Yeah, not anymore. Not after everything he did.”

“What do you mean, “not anymore”? What happened? Willow… Willow wouldn’t tell me anything. She said I had to ask you what you were doing here, on the outskirts of the Isles.”

_Really?_ Amity thought. _She reappears after all these years with no warning, and she has the nerve to ask ME what I’VE been doing?_

“Stop deflecting,” she snapped, her anger finally starting to seep out. “You said you’d explain everything, not drill me about the past six years. So start explaining.”

“Alright, alright,” Luz readjusted the beanie she was wearing and took a deep breath, looking more subdued than Amity had ever seen her. “I will, I just… I want to know what happened to you, Amity. I care about you, okay? And it seems like a lot has changed with everyone since I left. Like, Eda’s regained her ability to do magic without glyphs, did you know? I guess she and Lilith were able to find a partial cure for the curse…” Luz shook her head suddenly as if trying to clear it. “Okay, no, back on topic. I just wanted to know what happened to you after I left.”

“Okay, fine. Fine! You want to know what happened after you left?” Amity let a wave of anger overtake her. She hadn’t felt this angry in years… hadn’t let herself feel this angry. But something about Luz made her lose her grip on the emotions she had carefully controlled her entire life. “You really want to know, Noceda? Then I’ll tell you.”

Luz flinched at the use of her last name. She opened her mouth to speak, but never got the chance. 

“The moment that door closed behind you, I knew I had to make myself forget you and everything you changed in my life. You… you were just a distraction. I couldn’t throw away the goals I’d been working towards my entire life for one girl who had only been in my life for three months. Not even…” _The first real friend I’d made in years. The first person to take a genuine interest in my life. The first person I’d ever loved._ “Not even you. I couldn’t change my entire life for one human girl, no matter how you made me feel, no matter how carelessly you destroyed every belief I’d ever had about myself.”

“So I buried myself in my work. It’s not like I had a choice, did I? I had to make up for all the time you distracted me if I wanted to make it into the Emperor’s Coven, just like my par- just like I’d always wanted. It wasn’t too hard to get back to the top of my class, and I worked hard to maintain my standing with the coven despite everything holding me back — my connections to you and Lilith and the whole incident with our duel at the Covention. It took effort, and some pulling of strings by my parents, but I eventually met my goals.”

“Once I hit 17 I was invited to join the Coven — a year earlier than most witches do. Of course I accepted… only to realize too late that I’d made a huge mistake.” 

Amity pulled up her sleeve to reveal a golden triangular crest on her wrist. The mark had a symbol of a sword in the center and two wings extending off of it, and Luz’s eyes widened in recognition upon seeing it. Amity shoved the mark in Luz’s face, tears beginning to form in her eyes as she continued on. 

“You see this mark? It’s the mark of the Coven. I know you’ve heard that members of the Emperor’s Coven don’t have their magic sealed away, Luz. Turns out was nothing but a huge lie. 

“The Emperor wants his Coven to be the most powerful witches in the land, of course, but if you’re too powerful… if your magic comes too close to rivaling the Emperor’s own… it’s drained away once you join. The mark of the Coven may not limit you to only one type of magic like joining the other covens does, but it puts a cap on your power. The day of my initiation, I felt some of my power being drained away the moment I was branded… and I realized that the reason the Emperor chose the most powerful witches for his personal guard was as much to control them as it was to give himself a security force. I knew I couldn’t mention what I felt to anyone or I’d risk getting thrown out, so I kept quiet.”

Without realizing it, Amity had let her voice grow quieter, less angry. 

“I become another nameless, faceless member of the Coven’s ranks. I performed my duties the best that I could, tried to convince myself that this was what I had always wanted, that this was all that mattered. I would serve the emperor and uphold the law, and life would be perfect. It was better after you left. I didn’t need you in my life.

“But… I couldn’t do it. Luz… you were more than just a childhood crush for me, as stupid as it seems. You showed me that there’s another way besides just doing what my parents want — that I could make my own path, my own choices. You changed me too much for me to continue working for the Emperor. And Titan, I knew that if you found out I chose to join the Coven despite everything he did to you and Eda, you’d never want to speak to me again.”

By now, all the anger had drained away from Amity’s voice. Almost absentmindedly, she noticed she had stood up during her rant, and that she was shaking. Taking a deep breath, she sat back down and clutched her hands together to steady them.

“So, I ran away. Ran away from everything I’d been working my whole life to achieve because it all seemed so shallow in comparison to everything you taught me. I hadn’t been truly happy since I was 14 years old… since I was with you… and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life following someone else’s dreams for my future when I knew exactly what I needed to do to be happy. That’s why I live out here, now, as far away from the Emperor’s Coven as I can manage — I don’t want them to try and force me to return or punish me for abandoning my post. I’ve been working with Eda and Lilith ever since to find a way to remove the seal on my magic. For the first time in my life, I’m making my own choices about my future. And, well… here we are.”

Silence followed her outburst.

Amity didn’t want to look at Luz’s face — to see the look of disappointment or anger she was certain would be there. Didn’t want to watch as she stood up and left, this time walking out of her life for good.

The moment dragged on, just long enough for Amity’s brain to start overthinking everything again. Why hadn’t Luz said anything? Why couldn’t she hear her footsteps heading out the door? 

“I tried going back to my normal life after I left. It didn’t work.”

Amity didn’t look up, but she continued to listen as Luz spoke. 

“Suffice to say my mom wasn’t happy when she found out I never went to summer camp. The only people she was more upset at than me was the camp itself — I guess they had been writing letters to my mom pretending to be me so that she wouldn’t notice I never made it to camp? Something like that. She didn’t trust the camp enough to send me again next summer, but she found ways to keep me busy that wouldn’t let me indulge my “fantasy” about the Boiling Isles. Internships. Part-time jobs. Extracurriculars. I know she meant well, but I was quickly feeling suffocated. Whatever kind of person my mom was trying to mold me into was one I had no interest in being.

“I applied to college to appease her, but on the day of my high school graduation I took my car and hit the road. I told her it was just going to be a summer road trip, but I knew in my heart it wouldn’t be. I didn’t belong back home with her, as much as I loved her, and I needed to find a place where I did. 

“Returning to the Isles wasn’t an option. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to return, Amity, you have to believe me. More than anything, I wanted to come back to the only place I’d ever felt like I belonged. But Eda told me before I left that she thought it would be for the best if the Isles and the human world interacted less, especially since Belos seemed so determined to get to the human realm. After fixing the portal so I could return home, she told me she planned to destroy it again, this time for good, to prevent him from getting his hands on it. It killed me to know that I would have to say goodbye to everyone I loved in the Isles… that I would have to say goodbye to you... but I had to return home and see my mom, and it would be far too risky to return and let him know that a passage between the worlds still existed.

“I would have to settle for a second-best place. I went all over the United States — north, south, east, west. I saw some pretty cool things too: the Grand Canyon, The Statue of Liberty, the Rocky Mountains, tons of national parks…. but what places in the human world can compare to a place with real magic? New York was probably the place I felt most comfortable— there are far, far stranger people than me there — but no matter how far I travelled, no matter how much I tried to make myself believe that traveling across the country, free as a bird, was better than anything I’d experienced in the Isles, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t find a place in the human world where I belonged, because I’ve never really belonged in the human world. 

“More than anything, I wanted to be back in the Boiling Isles, and I wanted to be back with you. But I thought it was a stupid, impossible wish until the day I got a letter from Eda. Owlbert flew in through the window of my apartment, carrying a note that said Eda needed me back in the Isles to help with…. uh, something. So I returned to that broken-down old house where I first entered the Isles, and came back home.”

Amity finally looked up at Luz. She had a half-smile on her face, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

“I’ve only been back for about two days, but in that time alone I knew that this was where I needed to be. I should have come to see you sooner, I know, but I was scared. I didn’t know what had happened to you in the past six years, if you even still wanted to see me after I left, but… I didn’t just want to be back in the Boiling Isles, if I’m being honest. I wanted to be back with you. You… you’re the only person who’s ever cared about me in that way, and the only person who’s ever made me feel like I belong somewhere and that I’m not just a puzzle piece without a place in the picture. If you think I’ve changed you, Am… you’ve changed me far more just by being in my life.”

Amity let Luz’s words wash over her in silence for a few moments before she spoke again. 

“I… I thought you’d never come back. I thought you didn’t care enough.” She didn’t realize the truth of that statement until she said it aloud. 

“I didn’t think I'd ever come back, either. Not because I didn’t care, but because I cared too much. About the Isles, about everyone here, and about you most of all.”

Amity finally let herself cry. 

“Seeing you here, Luz… it makes me realize that Titan, it's so easy to just shut yourself off from the rest of the world to prevent yourself from getting hurt. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since you left — not letting anyone else get close to me, not let anyone else take my heart and then leave with it. Not… not letting myself fall in love with someone else again.”

Luz stared at her, eyes wide. “Love…?” she whispered.

Amity smiled. “Yes, you idiot, I loved you. Maybe just in the naive way a 14-year-old girl who’s never loved before can, but… yes. And seeing you again is a reminder that even after years of trying to suppress it, I still do.” 

There. Cards on the table. Amity wasn’t going to hide anymore.

The shock hadn’t left Luz’s eyes, but she placed her hand over Amity’s and gave it a squeeze. “I… I think I loved you then, too, even if I was too bone-headed to realize it. And I know for sure that I love you now. I think that was part of the reason I left, if I'm being honest — I didn’t know how to handle having these feelings for someone else, and when a way out was offered I didn’t fight it. It was so much easier to just run from you, and run from all the problems caused by the Emperor, because this world wasn’t my world. But, really, isn’t it? Isn’t this where the people I love live? And doesn’t that make it my responsibility to fight for them?”

Luz grabbed Amity’s other hand and held them both, looking her directly in the eyes.

“I’m not going to run anymore, Amity. I promise.”

Amity tightened her grip. “I promise, too.” She stood up, pulling Luz along with her, before continuing. “And… I know we don’t make sense together. I know our past has been anything but perfect, but… I've never been happier than when I've been with you. I don’t give a damn anymore about what other people think about us — we make sense to us, and there isn’t anyone else that I’d rather be with. I want to try ‘us’ again, if you’re willing to give me a chance.”

Luz smiled. “I’d love nothing more,” she said, and pulled the witch in for a hug.

Amity clung to her like a lifeline. “I’ve missed you so much,” she murmured in her ear. 

“I’ve missed you too, Amity.” 

After what felt like too short of a time, Amity pulled away. “So… this “something” that Eda told you she needed your help for… it didn't happen to be anything to do with the possible overthrow of the Emperor, did it?”

“Uhhhh…” Luz looked away. “If it hypothetically was… what would you think about it?”

“Luz, I'm a former member of the Emperor’s coven who's trying to undo his binding on my magic. Did you think I wasn’t already part of this plan?” 

“Oh. Well, now that you say that… viva la revolution?” 

Amity blinked, confused. “I’m not entirely sure what that means, but yes, we — Eda, Lilith and I mostly, although Willow and Gus have helped — have been planning a revolution against our dear Emperor for months now. Eda didn’t tell me she was enlisting your help, but,” she paused for a moment, smiling and looking right into Luz’s eyes. “With you, I know we can win.” 

“You really think so?” 

“I do. A long time ago, someone gave me faith in the underdogs.” 

Luz grinned and pulled the other girl closer to her, placing a hand on Amity’s cheek before kissing her. The kiss was short, but it felt like a promise.

They pulled apart, and Luz leaned her forehead against Amity’s, smiling. “You know… I've traveled two worlds looking for a place to belong, and I think I've found it. It’s right here, with you.” 

Amity didn't reply, but her eyes said more than she ever could.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first fic on this site, and I'm not 100% happy with how it turned out, but... well, at this point if I don't post it now I never will. I have quite a few ideas for some other, multichapter fics (one of which I have already started) so be on the lookout for those if you're interested! I'm so excited to be writing again!


End file.
